Do You See What God Sees?
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon Doubt Not Needed to Prove We Are Christians (Luke 12:29)
I suppose there are few men who have not, at some time or other, suffered pain, but it is not necessary for us always to have a toothache in order to prove that we really are men. And, in like manner, there are few Christians who have never had any doubts, yet it is not necessary to be always doubting in order to prove that we are Christians. But, as we are glad enough to get rid of pain, so are we to be glad to get rid of doubt by fully trusting our Lord who is so worthy of our trust.
Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
I believe that Spurgeon was right. Just as it is a given that you will experience pain in this natural life, so it is a given that you will experience doubt in this Christian life. Likewise, just as you don’t seek to dwell in your pain, but take steps to be delivered from it in your natural life, so to with doubt. Each is a symptom of an issue, not the issue itself.
In our 1st Reading, God makes a promise to Abraham - a promise to be his Protection, and his Rewarder.
χωρὶς δὲ πίστεως ἀδύνατον εὐαρεστῆσαι· πιστεῦσαι γὰρ δεῖ τὸν προσερχόμενον τῷ θεῷ ὅτι ἔστιν καὶ τοῖς ἐκζητοῦσιν αὐτὸν μισθαποδότης γίνεται.
It isn’t just that God “rewards those who seek Him;” the Greek says far more than the ESV gives God credit. God doesn’t just dispense rewards, His entire state of being changes for those who seek Him. God “becomes a Rewarder” - a μισθαποδότης - for them. They begin to know Him as a Rewarder instead of as a Withholder or a Punisher. You can be a bad person and do good things easily when it suits your purposes. To be a good person who does evil, that takes a shutting off your goodness , a denial of who you are. God by nature is a Rewarder, a Giver, “for the LORD is good, and His mercy endures forever.” The World, the Flesh, and the Devil try to keep us from trusting in God and in His goodness, by trying to keep us focused the passing pleasures of sin, which actually include trying to blame God for the evil that exists.
God tells Abram something that should make him shout for joy, but Abraham responds with a problem that makes him mourn - Abraham has no children. Not only does he respond to God’s promise with his problem, he says it twice, as if to make it clear that this problem negates the promise!
But just as Abram “doubled down” on his problem, God raised him on his future:
And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
Look at God’s response: not only will you have a son, Abram, Heaven will be filled with your sons as the stars fill the skies! Now that was good for Abram, so good that the text says that Abram stopped questioning and started believing!
Jesus taught us last week that those who try to take God’s place as their provider, will never have enough. If you try to make yourself rich through material possessions to the exclusion of God, you will end up with nothing.
This week, Jesus continues that lesson, taking us to the conclusion that when God has become your Rewarder, you can stop with the worrying, because God has got you!
ng!
And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?
David once said,
I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.
He didn’t say that the righteous never went through a period of feeling alone; he said that they were never forsaken. He didn’t say that their children didn’t have to work for food; he said that they wouldn’t have to beg for it! Why? Because God is watching over His people. Later on, when Abraham showed his trust in God’s faithfulness by obediently preparing to sacrifice Isaac, God confirmed it so powerfully that Abraham changed the name of the place to “YaHWeH yireh” or “the Lord sees” ().
Three years ago people predicted that this ministry would be dead within two years, but God sees! People said that there would be no more proclaiming that God forgives sinners from this place, but God sees!
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Jesus tells us that we don’t have to worry in the present, we don’t have to fear the future. We don’t have to hoard our blessings, and we don’t have to live in the past. God sees!
God sees where we are, and He sees where He’s taking us! He knows what we need, and He knows what He has for us.
“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.
Somebody wants to tell you that God is through with this ministry, and they aren’t even here to be a part of it? The devil is a lie! You’re here, you’re a part of this ministry, and God isn’t through with you until He calls you home! When God stops feeding you the Word of Life here, when God allows false doctrine to be declared from this place, that’s when you can say that God is through with it. When Christ’s True Body and Blood are no longer distributed here, then you can say that God is through with ministry here.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
People come and people go, building rise and fall. One thing is sure, this I know: Jesus Christ is Lord of all! Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord of All!
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Abram thought that His present lack would stop God’s Promise. If you feel that somehow, God’s promise to you of the Holy Spirit is not present, the Lord said “Ask, and it shall be given you.” If you feel that you are in bondage, and have lost your freedom in Christ, the Lord said, “seek and you shall find.” If you are being led to think that the doors of ministry are closing, or even have closed here, the Lord said “knock and it shall be opened.”
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me
Melt me, mold me, Fill me, use me
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me. (THFB #101)
So let the peace of God, that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
ADVERTISEMENT